Food review blog from San Francisco.

Restaurant: Zushi Puzzle (San Francisco)
Food description: Raw slices of pencil fish sashimi
Food rating: 5.5 out of 10
Times ordered: 1

The pencil fish was raved about endlessly on Yelp, and that Zushi Puzzle is the only place that carries it, and that it's special ordered from Japan, yada yada... Although I know better than to believe such nonsense, my curiosity got the best of me and I caved. Much to my dismay, pencil fish was nothing more than glorified halibut or any other firm white-meat fish. Though I'm not sure what it was supposed to look like, it didn't look very appetizing and didn't taste like much either. The cut was very thin, but there were a few tough stringy things here and there, which I could've done without. The texture was very firm, a tad chewy, and a tad slimy. I'd liken the flavor to similar to that of halibut or sea bass. I'm not a huge fan of the chewier texture of these leaner white fishes, and prefer fattier fish that tastes richer and has a smoother texture (i.e. salmon, hamachi, toro, butterfish). Aside from the cut, there was nothing necessarily wrong with the pencil fish, but it's just not something I would personally eat again.